Most college students use the summer as a time to hang out and gain employment to fill their wallets.
Jessica Plummer, a 19-year-old freshman guard for the Sinclair Lady Pride, spent two weeks of her summer vacation doing missionary work in Costa Rica with her church’s youth group .
Plummer, a 5-foot-7 guard who graduated from Tipp City, said her family has been involved in church for her entire life.
“I’ve barely missed a Sunday,” Plummer said.
Plummer regularly attends Faircreek Church in Fairborn, Ohio, and after experiencing a mission trip to Tijuana, Mexico when she was 15, Plummer took the opportunity to go again.
“I really enjoyed it and got a lot out of it,” Plummer said about her first mission trip.
Plummer defines a mission as “sharing what God has done for you with the world, for people who don’t know… Not only through your words, but through your actions.”
Plummer’s church held fundraisers to pay the cost for the youth members to be able to do missionary work in Costa Rica. The group originally planned to go to Honduras, but due to the political crisis taking place, they decided Costa Rica was a good substitute.
“We (ended up) being in the place (God) wanted us to be,” Plummer said.
On her 14-day journey, Plummer and others helped children who were raised around drugs and prostitution in impoverished areas. The areas they visited had no electricity, dirt roads and little variety in eating choices, according to Plummer.
“We’d eat the same thing for every meal – rice,” she said.
While there, Plummer said she connected with a young girl around the age of 7, even though they face a language barrier.
“I don’t know any Spanish – at all – except counting to 10,” Plummer said. “We didn’t even have to talk and it was really cool how we could communicate through playing (together).”
During the trip, Plummer realized how grateful she is for what she has in her life.
“People’s houses were built out of pieces of cardboard, (yet) I live in this house, and it might not be the greatest thing in the world, but compared to them…,” Plummer said. “The (people) are so grateful for every little thing that they have.”